A banner on Riverside's University Avenue at Main Street is part of the city's anti-panhandling campaign. Hemet's police chief has announced a plan to attempt to curtail panhandling and vagrancy in his city.

The Community Pantry in Hemet has created cards to be given to panhandlers to let them know where they can receive food and other assistance. Hemet's police chief has announced plans to start a task force to look into panhandling and vagrancy in the city.

Hemet residents and visitors were recently surveyed about their public safety concerns, and while the police chief said many areas were referenced, there was something mentioned more than anything else.

“One issue in the Quality of Life Survey that jumped out is the issue of panhandling, vagrancy, trespassing and loitering,” Dave Brown told the City Council last week. The survey “clearly indicates that people in our community are concerned, afraid and fed-up with the aggressive panhandling and disregard for common courtesy.”

It’s not uncommon for residents to be asked for money while filling their vehicles at gas stations and outside businesses.

To help combat the issue, Brown is setting up a task force led by four retired police investigators who will “work with the city team and stakeholders in the faith, business and nonprofit communities to develop a long-term, sustainable strategy” to help the needy, Brown said. Among the task force’s goals is restoring community parks so all residents can enjoy them.

While he’s in support of cleaning up the town, Jim Lineberger, executive director of the Valley Community Pantry food bank, said it’s unfair to lay all of the town’s ills on homeless people, many of whom congregate in Weston Park in downtown Hemet.

“They are not all the ones littering,” he said. “You have punks, you have gang-bangers causing problems. Let’s treat these people as humans.”

Brown said assistance should be offered to those who seek it.

“It is not OK for our community to ignore the needs of the truly needy, but it is also not OK for us to allow our city parks and business district to be overrun by those who chose to blatantly ignore city and state law,” Brown told the council.

He cited issues that residents have had, such as an attorney who said she has to lock her door during business hours because of vandalism and trespassing, a chiropractor with a downtown office who said she is losing patients because of the intimidation and trash, and members of the shuffleboard club who said that club members are too afraid to use their facility in Weston Park and out-of-town players have stopped coming.

Lineberger commiserates with those people, but also said its not just homeless people who cause problems and bother residents.

Brown said the goal is not to chase homeless people out of town.

“It is imperative that we not approach this as a program designed to push needy people out of the parks, but that we work with our partners in nonprofit, charitable, faith-based and government organizations to get people connected with the resources they need,” he told the council.

Lineberger said federal law protects the rights of homeless people to stay in public areas from sun up to sundown without being harassed.

He said his agency, which provides food and sanitary items and other services for those in need, will not help anyone who is caught breaking the law.

Lineberger said homelessness is a complicated issue.

“We need to come together and find a solution,” he said. “I respect what’s going on, I understand, but is this the right way to do it?”

Craig Shultz primarily reports about the San Jacinto Valley. He started his journalism career there in 1985 and has reported on the community and region for most of that time, covering everything from sports to city halls and schools. He was previously the editor of The Hemet News and The Valley Chronicle. Shultz was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles and graduated from Cal State Northridge.

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